A protective suit of this kind is described in German Pat. No. 12 02 141. The protective suit described in this patent has hollow spaces capable of receiving breathing gas therein which enters from these hollow spaces into the breathing space of the helmet of the protective suit. The hollow spaces are formed as rigid-walled, double-shell chambers separated from one another by ribs and these chambers communicate with one another by means of suitable openings and thus form a reservoir for the breathing gas. A plurality of chambers are combined in regions that are pivotably connected with one another by suitable couplings and are provided with check valves at their connecting openings. In the event of leakage in one of the combined regions, these check valves prevent the supply of breathing gas from entering such a region from an undamaged region which would allow the entire supply of breathing gas to escape via this leak.
The protective suit disclosed in German Pat. No. 12 02 141 is intended to supply its wearer with fresh air for breathing in an environment in which the air is not breathable and to simultaneously seal off the respiratory organs from the undesirable penetration of harmful ambient air.
This kind of protective suit is suitable for use in air, but it cannot be used as a protective suit for divers. The hollow chambers that can be filled with breathing air in a protective suit of the kind described above are uniformly distributed over the entire body surface of the person wearing the suit, and as a diver ascended, these hollow chambers would push upward more or less uniformly against all the parts of the body, so that a preferred upright position of the body during the ascent would not be assured. Furthermore, it cannot be assured that once a diver has ascended, the diver will remain with the head above the water because, as a result of the more or less uniformly distributed forces of buoyancy on the body, a stable balanced position in which the head protrudes from the surface of the water is not assured. Yet such a position is a necessity, particularly for unconscious divers.
When the protective suit is first filled under water, as may for instance be necessary in rescue of the crew of a submarine, the known protective suit requires waiting until such time as the entire volume of the hollow chambers in the protective suit has filled with the breathing gas. During the ascent and once the surface of the water has been reached, exhalation of the breathing air stored in the hollow chambers is possible only to a limited extent, and only as long as sufficient buoyancy of the still-filled protective suit prevents the diver from sinking again.